Athanasius' ‘Vita Antonii’ as Political Theology: The Call of Heavenly Citizenship

2016 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
SOPHIE CARTWRIGHT

This article explores the political theology of Athanasius' ‘Life of Antony’. It argues that the work is profoundly concerned with the relationship between the Church and the empire, which it treats as a component of the relationship between the Church and the fallen world order. Athanasius explores this issue through Antony, striving to live as a citizen of heaven within the fallen world. Athanasius sees allegiance to earthly authority as problematising allegiance to the heavenly kingdom, which is bound up with a concern for the Christian's identity: the Christian must understand himself and the world in relation to the kingdom of heaven, rather than the earthly kingdom.

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (9) ◽  
pp. 3-15
Author(s):  
Agustinus Wisnu Dewantara

The political responsibility is important, not because of the need for the love of the homeland and the challenge of the disintegration of the nation in multicultural sphere, but must be born of deep Christian faith. This paper specifically addresses to the lay apostolate in socio-politics-society. The Catholic laity was also called to be salt and light in the political world. The emergence of some form of practical theology (such as liberation theology and political theology) affirms that concern. The theme of the laity will be juxtaposed with a review of the "political attitude" voiced by the prophets in Scripture. The hope is that the laity will become more aware of its social-political calling as part of the faithful life to sound prophetic voice in the world. The struggle of the Church into a prophetic power largely depends on the laity (and of course in good cooperation with the priests). The laity today are called to be new prophets to proclaim the truth without becoming part of the defilement itself


Author(s):  
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde ◽  
Mirjam Künkler ◽  
Tine Stein

Is and can religion be seen as a foundation of the modern state? In this article Böckenförde discusses the relationship between state and religion while reviewing Hegel’s main writings on this question. Reconstructing Hegel’s concept of the state, Böckenförde points out that for Hegel, the state is simultaneously universal and historical. It is more than the political system or government—it is the polity in general and the structured form in which the people exist. Moreover, the state is the materialization of the ethical idea as such and the manifestation of how ‘truth’ in history became reality. In Hegel’s view, ‘truth’ is ultimately God’s will in the world. Further, for Hegel, state and religion are two forms of the same substance: reason. Morality and reason are closely intertwined in Hegel. Religion is a source of morality for the people, and the state and the Church are the institutional manifestations of reason. Böckenförde shows that Hegel identifies individual conscience as the core of each person’s freedom; however, Hegel denies a right to an aberrant conscience, indicating a very limited notion of freedom. Finally, Böckenförde discusses Hegel’s philosophy in light of the state today with its separation of state and religion. Since today’s state does not consider religion as part of its foundation, in Hegel’s view it would ‘stand freely in the air’. Böckenförde concludes, contrary to Hegel, that only the democratic process and the people’s agreement on the things that cannot be voted upon can form the basis of the state.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agustinus Dewantara

The political responsibility is important, not because of the need for the love of the homeland and the challenge of the disintegration of the nation in multicultural sphere, but must be born of deep Christian faith. This paper specifically addresses to the lay apostolate in socio-politics-society. The Catholic laity was also called to be salt and light in the political world. The emergence of some form of practical theology (such as liberation theology and political theology) affirms that concern. The theme of the laity will be juxtaposed with a review of the "political attitude" voiced by the prophets in Scripture. The hope is that the laity will become more aware of its social-political calling as part of the faithful life to sound prophetic voice in the world. The struggle of the Church into a prophetic power largely depends on the laity (and of course in good cooperation with the priests). The laity today are called to be new prophets to proclaim the truth without becoming part of the defilement itself


Author(s):  
Emma Simone

Virginia Woolf and Being-in-the-world: A Heideggerian Study explores Woolf’s treatment of the relationship between self and world from a phenomenological-existential perspective. This study presents a timely and compelling interpretation of Virginia Woolf’s textual treatment of the relationship between self and world from the perspective of the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. Drawing on Woolf’s novels, essays, reviews, letters, diary entries, short stories, and memoirs, the book explores the political and the ontological, as the individual’s connection to the world comes to be defined by an involvement and engagement that is always already situated within a particular physical, societal, and historical context. Emma Simone argues that at the heart of what it means to be an individual making his or her way in the world, the perspectives of Woolf and Heidegger are founded upon certain shared concerns, including the sustained critique of Cartesian dualism, particularly the resultant binary oppositions of subject and object, and self and Other; the understanding that the individual is a temporal being; an emphasis upon intersubjective relations insofar as Being-in-the-world is defined by Being-with-Others; and a consistent emphasis upon average everydayness as both determinative and representative of the individual’s relationship to and with the world.


2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-259
Author(s):  
Joseph Acquisto

This essay examines a polemic between two Baudelaire critics of the 1930s, Jean Cassou and Benjamin Fondane, which centered on the relationship of poetry to progressive politics and metaphysics. I argue that a return to Baudelaire's poetry can yield insight into what seems like an impasse in Cassou and Fondane. Baudelaire provides the possibility of realigning metaphysics and politics so that poetry has the potential to become the space in which we can begin to think the two of them together, as opposed to seeing them in unresolvable tension. Or rather, the tension that Baudelaire animates between the two allows us a new way of thinking about the role of esthetics in moments of political crisis. We can in some ways see Baudelaire as responding, avant la lettre, to two of his early twentieth-century readers who correctly perceived his work as the space that breathes a new urgency into the questions of how modern poetry relates to the world from which it springs and in which it intervenes.


Author(s):  
Michael N. Barnett

How do American Jews envision their role in the world? Are they tribal—a people whose obligations extend solely to their own? Or are they prophetic—a light unto nations, working to repair the world? This book is an interpretation of the effects of these worldviews on the foreign policy beliefs of American Jews since the nineteenth century. The book argues that it all begins with the political identity of American Jews. As Jews, they are committed to their people's survival. As Americans, they identify with, and believe their survival depends on, the American principles of liberalism, religious freedom, and pluralism. This identity and search for inclusion form a political theology of prophetic Judaism that emphasizes the historic mission of Jews to help create a world of peace and justice. The political theology of prophetic Judaism accounts for two enduring features of the foreign policy beliefs of American Jews. They exhibit a cosmopolitan sensibility, advocating on behalf of human rights, humanitarianism, and international law and organizations. They also are suspicious of nationalism—including their own. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that American Jews are natural-born Jewish nationalists, the book charts a long history of ambivalence; this ambivalence connects their early rejection of Zionism with the current debate regarding their attachment to Israel. And, the book contends, this growing ambivalence also explains the rising popularity of humanitarian and social justice movements among American Jews.


Author(s):  
Paul J. Bolt ◽  
Sharyl N. Cross

Chapter 1 explores perspectives on world order, including power relationships and the rules that shape state behavior and perceptions of legitimacy. After outlining a brief history of the relationship between Russia and China that ranged from cooperation to military clashes, the chapter details Chinese and Russian perspectives on the contemporary international order as shaped by their histories and current political situation. Chinese and Russian views largely coincide on security issues, the desirability of a more multipolar order, and institutions that would enhance their standing in the world. While the Chinese–Russian partnership has accelerated considerably, particularly since the crisis in Ukraine in 2014, there are still some areas of competition that limit the extent of the relationship.


Author(s):  
Michael P. DeJonge

This chapter continues the examination of Bonhoeffer’s first phase of resistance through an exposition of “The Church and the Jewish Question,” turning now to the modes of resistance proper to the church’s preaching office. Because such resistance involves the church speaking against the state, it appears to stand in contradiction with Bonhoeffer’s suggestion earlier in the essay that the church should not speak out against the state. This is in fact not a contradiction but rather the coherent expression of the political vision as outlined in the first several chapters of this book, which requires that the church criticize the state under certain circumstances but not others. The specific form of word examined here is the indirectly political word (type 3 resistance) by which the church reminds the messianic state of its mandate to preserve the world with neither “too little” nor “too much” order.


1978 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 555-587 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel S. Kim

This paper makes a macro-inquiry into Chinese global politics by defining and elaborating the Chinese image and strategy of world order within a normative framework. Empirical data and behavioral referents in the paper are largely drawn from Chinese multilateral diplomacy in the global community during the first half-decade (1971–1976) of Chinese participation in UN. Such a normative-globalist paradigm has a heuristic value in interpreting more broadly China's global policy and its impact on the evolving process of creating a more just and humane world order. The paper argues that the interactions between China and the world organization have, on the whole, been positive and that the relationship between the two has been one of mutual adjustment and mutual legitimization, with the resulting enhancement of each other's symbolic capability. By way of conclusion, the paper draws, in a tentative and speculative manner, some broad policy implications of the post-Mao leadership.


2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 304-316
Author(s):  
Anne M. Blankenship

During the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans, visions of a peaceful new world order led mainline Protestants to manipulate the worship practices of incarcerated Japanese Americans ( Nikkei) to strengthen unity of the church and nation. Ecumenical leaders saw possibilities within the chaos of incarceration and war to improve themselves, their church, and the world through these experiments based on ideals of Protestant ecumenism and desires for racial equality and integration. This essay explores why agendas that restricted the autonomy of racial minorities were doomed to fail and how Protestants can learn from this experience to expand their definition of unity to include pluralist representations of Christianity and America as imagined by different sects and ethnic groups.


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